


Prince Gingercock

by Winklepicker



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fluff and Crack, Light Angst, M/M, kylux adjacent, what happens when i walk down the beach with a dictation app
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 06:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winklepicker/pseuds/Winklepicker
Summary: Dear Magic 8-Ball, will I regret posting this at nearly 1am without checking it over for typos and gremlins?Signs point to yes.





	Prince Gingercock

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Magic 8-Ball, will I regret posting this at nearly 1am without checking it over for typos and gremlins?
> 
> Signs point to yes.

“You must marry, Ben,” Queen Leia beseeched her son. She cradled her head in one hand, trying to knead away the headache that was Ben’s sniping. She was tired of his rudeness, weary of his dismissal of every suitor she had brought before him. This one was too short, that one too tall, his voice was too squeaky, her fashion sense atrocious, their hands were too stubby, he smelled of asparagus.

Almost every prince and princess, duke and duchess had put themselves forward but Prince Ben’s behaviour now preceded him. The prospect of being the next rejected suitor was not an inviting one. And marrying Prince Ben no longer seemed a price worth paying for the small queendom that came with him. The trickle of nobles waned.

“Prince Armitage Hux, heir to the Seven Marches, Duke of Arkanis, Earl of the Starkillers and Order of the First Base.” Hux stood in the doorway, frozen. He heard a hiss and looked to see the herald roll his eyes and push him through the doorway and into the throne room.

Every day, since Queen Leia made her announcement, Hux would arrive at the castle clutching a single black rose. And every day he would usher suitors ahead of him in line as Prince Ben dismissed every one of them.

This was not the Ben he had known, so many years ago. The Ben who taught him how to swim, who got them lost in the Skywalker Caves, who’d kissed him under the soft green light of the glow worm festooned ceiling, who had held Hux’s hand and told him they’d always be together. Always, until duty and study and dull dull ritual drew them apart.

Each day Prince Ben’s hard words chipped jagged shards from Hux’s confidence until every day—before he could be called—Hux ran, tossing his wilted rose into the festering gutter. That was, until today.

He brushed a thin hand down his pea-green coat and with head held high marched across the great hall toward the dais, hoping they could not see his nervous shaking. Before he reached halfway a hoot of laughter rang out. A sound Hux had heard each day and feared to hear now. He stopped at the dais and bowed.

“Ben,” Leia hissed. “Behave, please,” she begged.

“Look at his hair. Look at his _beard_.” Ben roared with laughter. Is he red all over do you think? Hey, Prince Gingercock, are you red all over?”

Unable to contain his anger Hux felt a flush bloom on his cheeks.

“He is! Look how red he’s gone.”

“Ben, I’m warning you.” Leia’s voice was low but it carried through the hall, straightening the spines of all who heard it. “I’ve done all I can to allow you a choice. Do not ruin this.”

Ben pouted mockingly at his mother. He turned his back on the throne and jumped down from the dais. One step, two, and he stuck his face in Hux’s. “You look like a carrot,” he said.

Hux pressed his lips together. He had expected some flicker of recognition, a hint of care. Though he tamped his anger down and tempered his hurt, he couldn’t stop himself saying, “How original, your grace. So very clever. Such witty cutting remarks. You truly are a grand intellect.”

Ben invaded his space too close again with a cocked brow and wandering eyes. He sniffed, whirled around and stepped back up to the throne. “I don’t think so, Gingercock. Better luck next time.”

Before Hux could respond, Leia shot up and loomed over her sprawled son. Quite a feat for someone half his size.

“Next time? Oh, there’s no next time, my boy. I warned you. And now, _now_ you will marry whoever I choose. And I choose the very next moocher that comes begging at our door.”

While Queen Leia unleashed a tirade on her son, Hux took the chance to slip away unheeded. He never should have come. But he had and now he would be Prince Gingercock at court forever. How to teach Prince Ben a lesson for humiliating him so, that was the question he pondered as he walked his horse back home. It was when he passed through a small and shabby hamlet that he knew what he would do. He threw his black rose into a ditch and set his horse for home at a gallop.

The morning after Hux’s humiliation, Leia heard a warbling voice singing outside the castle door. She had the singer brought before her, a thin mud-covered fellow with dirty hair and blackened teeth. The man bowed, apologizing for the rain of muddy clods that fell from his clothes, and asked to be spared a shilling.

Queen Leia folded her arms and gave him a lopsided grin, “Oh, I can do much better than a shilling. Dopheld,” she called for the servant, “Fetch my son, would you. I’d like to introduce him to his fiancé.”

Ben was furious. He stamped his big, pretty feet, and tossed his long, pretty hair. But Leia was having none of his nonsense. She caught him by the ear and very soon Ben and the beggar-man were married. And because beggars did not belong in the royal household, Leia kicked them out and waved Ben off with a cheery farewell.

The beggar groom walked swiftly on his long legs while Ben, who was unused to exercise, trailed behind scowling at the world and at his new husband’s back.

Not a word did they speak to each other until they passed a large forest teeming with deer and rabbits and grouse.

“Who’s forest is this,” Ben asked.

Without turning around or slowing his pace the beggar replied, “It belongs to Prince Gingercock. If you’d married him it would be yours, my love.”

“I’m not your love, “Ben sneered but he looked about the beautiful vast forest and sighed, wishing he’d not been quite so rude to Prince Hux.

Then they passed by acres of lush green meadows, filled with butterflies and wildflowers, with bees and lowing cows.

“Whose meadows are these?” Ben asked, stopping in his tracks at the verdant sight.

“They belong to Prince Gingercock. If you’d married him they’d be yours, my love.”

“I’m not your love,” Ben sniped, but he picked a wildflower and whispered to it—“Perhaps I should have married Prince Hux.”

The beggar pressed on, his strides never slowing, and soon they passed a lovely sprawling town. Its roads were straight and clean, its buildings neatly in rows.

“Whose town is this?” Ben asked.

“It belongs to Prince Gingercock. If you’d married him it would be yours, my love.”

“I’m not your love,” Ben hissed, “and I _should_ have married Prince Gingercock. Now I’m stuck with you, you filthy mud beast.”

The beggar stopped. He did not turn but cocked his head and said, “Do I not please you, my love?” Not waiting for a response, the beggar marched on leaving Ben to splutter at the absurdity.

At last as the sun dipped low on the horizon, they arrived at a tiny hovel propped up against a crumbling wall on the outskirts of a tiny hamlet. The beggar stopped in front of it and spun on his heel. He folded his arms and regarded Ben with a raised brow.

Ben looked around and about him. “What the hell is this?” He flapped his hand at the sad collection of wooden planks and straw and mud. Nearby, a heap of compost more than half Ben’s height steamed, perfuming the air with the aroma of overly damp earth and rotting cabbage. A swarm of midges hung in a threatening cloud.

“This is my home, and yours now, my love.” The beggar ducked beneath a crooked lintel and disappeared into the gloom inside.

“Don’t call me that,” Ben shouted and followed after, slapping at a mosquito. “I could never love…” His voice petered out as he took in the single room—if it could be called a room—that would now be his home. A tiny cot of straw and single ragged blanket in one corner, a table made of a broken crate, and a stove made of a rusty can. “Where’re…” Ben sighed, “There aren’t any servants, idiot,” he mumbled to himself.

The beggar settled cross-legged on the dirt floor with a grunt. “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say.” He pinned Ben with a fierce stare. “But don’t let me hear you call my husband an idiot again.”

Ben sucked in his bottom lip, unsure of what to say or do.

The beggar pursed his lips and shook his head. “Best get those lily white hands used to work, my love,” he said, stony-faced. “Light a fire in the grate, I’m cold. And make me something to eat.”

Poor Ben had no idea how to do either of those things. He’d never cooked or made a fire in his life and he was frightened now of his husband’s severity. He shuffled from one foot to the other. Homesickness was already brewing in his heart along with a dash of fear and a sprinkling of loneliness.

But the beggar only sighed and shifted over, gesturing for Ben to sit next to him. He showed him how to build up a fire, how to cut carrots, celery and onions, and how to pronounce mirepoix. He even tried to wipe the onion tears from Ben’s cheeks but Ben recoiled away from his dirty hands. The beggar sniffed and sat back. “Suit yourself.”

When it was time for bed Ben refused to lie on the scratchy straw and so close to the beggar. “Suit yourself,” his husband said and rolled over to face the wall.

Ben tried to sleep this way and that but at last he gave in. He got up from the cold, dirty floor and with a restrained sob, crawled into the bed trying not to touch the beggar. He was so exhausted from their journey and his misery. So exhausted. And the ratty old blanket was warm—warmer than the floor anyway. Warm enough to… just drift… off.

Ben felt like he had only just nodded off when he woke up again. The pale morning light that cut through the dark hut told him no. The beggar was sitting beside him, peering down at his face. For a moment Ben thought he saw a gentle smile dancing on the beggar’s lips. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. No, there was no smile cutting across that flinty, cold stare. Not now.

“Get up. You need to find work or else we’ll starve.”

Ben’s barely awake heart thud-thudded in his ears. “What,” he croaked. “What on earth am I supposed to do?”

When he was up and ready, the beggar walked Ben to a river. “There are some reeds,” he said. “Cut them and dry them and weave them into baskets to sell at the market.”

Ben tried for seven days but all he managed to make was a mess of twisted, broken reeds and painful cuts on his tender hands. In a great fit of rage he hurled away the knot of reeds he was working on and sat fuming. _Let the beggar come, _he thought_. Let him see how useless I am. Let him curse the day he married me._

But the beggar did no such thing. Instead he took Ben’s hands gently in his own. He washed the cuts and bound them in white cloth and kissed along Ben’s knuckles One. Two. Three. Four.

“Perhaps something different, my love.”

Ben pulled his hands free and muttered, “I’m not your love.” But he was surprised to find so little venom behind his words. And when the beggar looked away, Ben pressed his knuckles to his cheek without knowing why.

The next day the beggar gave Ben a crook and showed him a field full of sheep. “Take these sheep onto the hill to graze. The farmer will pay you to keep them fed and safe.” Ben tried for seven days but all he managed was to guide the flock left when he wanted them to go right, down when he wanted them to walk up. He got his legs rammed, his toes trampled, and lost half the flock while he took a nap. This time the beggar would be furious with him. This time he would throw him out into the mud.

But his husband only sat Ben by the fire. He kneeled by his feet and pulled off his soft slippers, one, two. Ben held his breath. It seemed the right thing to do. Lest he disturbed the air in which a spell was about to be cast.

The beggar took his left foot gently in his hands. He rubbed and kneaded. Wiggled and prodded. Ben tried to breathe evenly. Calmly. But while he was busy making himself breathe, his body betrayed him and let forth a grateful moan when the beggar dug his thumbs into the ball of his foot. He had no time to react to his blunder before the beggar placed a soft kiss to his arch and let his foot go.

“You are no shepherd. Perhaps something different, my love.”

Ben opened his mouth to reply but found no words willing to emerge. Instead he looked back at the shining green eyes peering at him and nodded before looking away.

The next day the beggar took Ben to the market square. He showed him a small stall filled with nuts and bolts, and tools and wires.

“What’s all this?” Ben asked.

“This is where I work,” the beggar said. And he showed Ben what each thing was. And how to put together cogs and wheels. How to make butterflies with flapping wings, and clapping monkeys, and singing nightingales.

Ben tried for seven days. He tried his best. He worked long and hard. And, he loved it! He made his mistakes and he made failures too. But he tried and tried and he practiced and he tried. Pretty creatures, delicate and strong. Contraptions that spun and played melodies—he made them all.

The townsfolk heard of the pretty prince with the clever hands and soon Ben’s stall was the busiest in the square.

Each night he went home, to his hovel and his husband. He paced up and down—two steps each way—and told the beggar about all the things he made and sold that day.

The beggar listened to him with a smile in his eyes as he watched him spin about the room. He took Ben’s hands in his own and said, “How clever you are, my love.”

This time Ben did not pull away. Instead he clasped his arms around the beggar’s waist and spun him around as though he was a sack of feathers. The beggar’s hearty laughter joined Ben’s own.

The next day, as Ben set up his stall, a drunken soldier began roaring around the square. As he passed by Ben, he swung with his cudgel. Ben ducked just in time and scrambled away. But the furious soldier would have his amusement and he smashed Ben’s stall and all of his wares to pieces.

This time the beggar would finally be rid of him and leave him destitute. This Ben knew. Of this Ben was certain.

Instead, when Ben ducked through their door, the took him in his arms and wiped away his tears. “You were very good at making things, my love.”

He led Ben to their bed and sat him down. “There is to be a grand wedding at the castle tomorrow, they will need many hands. Perhaps you can work there.”

He smoothed Ben’s hair away from where it stuck to his tear streaked cheeks, ran his thumb along the prince’s jaw and leaned in to brush their lips together. Softer than a butterfly’s wing. The beggar shut his eyes tight and held his breath. Forever ticked past as they stood a hair’s breadth apart. Their breaths mingled, warm and wet. One forever, two forever, three. Forever followed forever until Ben clasped his husband close and kissed him. And kissed him, and kissed him again.

They fell back on the small straw bed, each peeling the clothes off the other’s back. There in the twilight, they made love—calloused hands running over smooth pale backs, hungry mouths making soft flesh grow hard. They lay together until the red dawn found them in each other’s arms.

The beggar whispered and petted Ben awake. He kissed first Ben’s left eye, then his right. His royal nose, and his plump pink mouth. “Come my love, I have a surprise.”

Ben filled the bed with his stretch and grinned at his husband. “Is it a big surprise?” he asked, waggling his brows.

His husband’s eyes wandered to the side. “You could say it was big, yes.”

Ben turned his head. He choked back a cough and propped himself up. Taking up almost the entire hovel was a tin bath filled with steaming water.

Questioning where the enormous bath—or all that hot water—had come from was so very far from the prince’s mind when bathing for the first time since leaving his home was on the agenda. He sank down into the water with a blurble and a sigh and beckoned his husband to join him. And there they soaked, while blackbirds sang the day awake.

Before the water cooled to discomfort, Ben began to scrub at the dirt on his husband’s back. He rubbed at the dirt only to find the skin beneath was as smooth and white as buttermilk.

Then Ben lathered and soaped and combed his husband’s greasy hair only to find that beneath the grime it was a burnished golden-red.

And when the beggar stood up, the water cascading down his moon-pale skin, Ben saw in the morning light his very ginger cock standing to attention. He gazed up at his husband with a question in his eyes, and the name _Hux_ on his lips.

“Yes, my love. And today the king’s son is getting married.” He held his hand out and helped Ben to stand. “I hope my husband finds me acceptable.” He kissed Ben’s palm, and then worried his lip while he waited.

“But we are already married,” said Ben, bewildered.

“No, you married the beggar. But beggar is not my name, is it?”

“So,” said Ben, feeling suddenly stupid, “we’re not married then?”

“Not technically,” said Hux. “At least not as far as my mother is concerned. You should see the hideous ancestral veil she wants me to wear.”

They both stood, unsure of what to say.

Finally Hux closed the space between then. He tipped Ben’s bowed head up. “Will you then? Marry me?” he whispered the words like he was afraid they would hurt.

Ben leaned in. He kissed Hux on the left eye and then the right. On his royal nose and his plump pink mouth. “I did promise we’d be always be together, Hux.”

Hux’s worried frown broke, and he beamed so bright the sun was ashamed. He took Ben’s hand and placed it between his legs, “You can call me Prince Gingercock.”


End file.
